This being labor day, two SR writers (Tom Sowa and Scott Maben) produced a story running Sunday that looks at what the local economy offers for job growth.

One piece of information that popped up in the research was a report on the number of business sole proprietors in the local economy.

That's not a number the federal or state economists regularly track. But Gary Smith, who runs a site called the Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Analysis Project (PNREAP) has done some data-gathering and has some numbers worth considering.

Smith has been a regional economist with Washington State University. We tried to reach him to look at the method used in gathering these numbers. We didn't connect. But we will follow up after Labor Day. His site cites the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.

His numbers say: in 2006 Spokane County had 46,200 sole business proprietors -- people who were a one-person business or one so small that it didn't pay payroll taxes to the state. Of those 2,000 were in the farm or food industry.

In 2010, as the recession has pushed many people out of traditional workplaces, Smith's numbers say Spokane's proprietor group has grown to 51,016.  Of those, 2,300 are in farming, according to the data he's collected.

That's a net gain since 2006 of almost 5,000 more people running a sole proprietorship.  It's not clear if those are people who also qualify as part time or full time workers for another company.

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